


Correspondence

by Shadadukal



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-13
Updated: 2011-05-13
Packaged: 2017-10-19 09:32:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadadukal/pseuds/Shadadukal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Declan MacRae has known Ashley Magnus all her life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Correspondence

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to grav_ity for the beta!

_Henry's built me a new stunner. I can't wait to take out something with it._

Watson had said a very good friend of his would be coming to visit. Declan hadn't been at the London Sanctuary for long, but those who were told him that was code for Helen Magnus, the big boss, the head of the network.

He expected to be awed. The woman was a legend after all.

What he hadn't expected was to be stuck baby-sitting her four-year-old, or thereabout, kid while Dr. Magnus locked herself with Watson in the man's office.

Ashley frowned at him, staring at him up and down, looking for all the world as if she was considering the best way to take him down.

"Tell you what," he began, "you can eat as many sweets as you like as long as you brush your teeth afterwards and don't tell your Mum."

Ashley remained silent for a few seconds, before a dangerous grin appeared on her face.

They ended up best friends after that, or rather he thought that was what he was in her four-year-old eyes. As long as he made sure to keep her well-supplied in sweets.

 _We haven't seen the Big Guy for a week. Henry says it's because he's got fleas, but I know it's because he's building something for Henry's birthday that requires his full attention._

The next time he saw Ashley, she was a teenager, awkward, constantly pissed off, and deadly. She could wipe the floor with most of the tactical personnel of the Sanctuary. To his relief, that didn't include him. Yet.

Lines of worries creased James's face when he saw her fight, eyes looking at something no one else could see.

When Declan asked why, James clamped shut like an oyster. Any advances Declan made that summer were shut down, James only taking him back in his bed after Ashley left, with twice the number of suitcases she'd originally showed up with.

 _Mum bought me a new gun for my birthday. It's made out of gold, well in parts anyway, and there's my name engraved on it. How cool is that?_

"At least here I can drink legally," Ashley said, before throwing her head backwards, swallowing another shot, and then she gestured for one more.

Ashley had arrived a scant few hours before to spend another summer with her uncle James. He hoped it wouldn't turn out for him like the one five years ago. Which it probably would if Declan brought her home pissed drunk on her first night in England.

Or if he had to drag her away from a bar fight. Some guys were watching her quite lecherously. He'd known the moment he saw her in extremely low-rise jeans and a tight backless top that this was a bad idea. He knew better than to look as if he was going to dissuade the guys from coming closer though. She'd hit him as well if he did that, but he was ready to help if she needed it.

James's yelling was directed at them both when he caught them disinfecting wounds in the infirmary. Declan was in for some blue balls again, but perhaps, just for the conspiring look he shared with the younger Magnus, it had been worth it.

After she left that summer, Ashley took to randomly sending him e-mails, which shed light on some things that the reports coming out of the Old City Sanctuary simply didn't cover.

He always replied with housekeeping details of his own.

 _Does Uncle James ever look at me funny when I’m fighting? Mum’s taken to watching me train, and sometimes I catch her eye and it’s like she’s scared of me._

Ashley flashed by on her next visit, just looking for a place to rest after a solo mission – her first, she was quite proud – and before she joined her mother in Hungary.

 _Mum has hired a new guy. A shrink. He brought doughnuts this morning. Can you believe that? Doughnuts! Guy must think he's still in the police force, but that should pass quick enough._

Declan saw her on security cameras, watched as she took down their defences one after the other. He had an opportunity to take a good look at her after she went down when her mother shot her with Tesla's weapon. But she didn't stay down for long. He pressed the touch screen with a heavy heart when Magnus ordered him to release the elemental. He was both relieved and disappointed when there was no body in the burned down lab.

A terse e-mail from Zimmerman informed him and the other Head of Houses of what went down at the Old City facility.

He went to his room, not his office – because he still thought of it as James's – and opened up his e-mail account, to read some of Ashley's correspondence and remember her as she had really been.


End file.
